Multinational Company Consumer Solution - Essay Example

18-10-2006 Case study Overview: Consumer solution is a multinational company dealing with consumer goods, researching, manufacturing and marketing its products in multiple areas. Its strengths lies in research and development of the new product which provides the company edge over other competitors as in consumer goods competition is cut-throat. Company has a defined top-down hierarchy in sales management team. Dave brown at the top as vice president "sales" working with the company for last 12 years started as sales manager. Next to him is Les Newman as director alternative channels having 8 years exp. In the company worked as brand manager and promoted last year. The position parallel to him is vacant. Keren French sr. manager national sales having 5 years of experience in the company is looking after account management of major clients. Just below her she has appointed Rick fire as national sales manager of Canada operations directly reporting to her for the last one year in the company. Prior to this assignment Rick was working with a small company for the last 6 months. Problem: Rick fire as energetic, enthusiastic and young man always trying to look after opportunities to grow has been performed well in last one year with relationship management with the client Zellengers. For that he has been appreciated and offered training and career enhancement prospects. But being an over ambitious person he set his target and seeing the opportunities in alternative channel development he came with a proposal for the product "Freshner" which has the monopoly in the market. He wants to create an alternative channel with sports apparel and sport goods (SASG) chain. Though he has not been assigned the job but on his own he talked with Les about the proposal just without any details. The actual problem starts here. His proposal has not been paid proper response and he feels disheartened. Due to his ambitions he talked to Keren his immediate boss who again sent him to Les. Les again told him to wait for the results from U.S. market. Now he approached to Dave with strong recommendation of Keren. Due to that pressure Les called him but again he was not with complete proposals. After 2 weeks he again met with LES with proposals and researched information and les paid proper attention to him and signaled him to go ahead. But again he has never involved les directly in the project and just provided him the overview of the progress through e-mails. Prior to last meeting before contract has to be executed Les willingly asked for participation. Rick wanted to appraised the complete situation before final meeting but only managed to talk just prior to meeting and the objection raised by Les about pricing which has been an important issue because stores are selling at $4.99 where as SASG has been priced $5.99 and the experience of US has not been good for the company. So it has to be properly answered. So in the last presentation before contract being executed Les objected on the price issue and the client became susceptible to execute the contract and it has opened up the problem that existed in the sales management team at the top level. The main problem which has been told by Les that Rick is not a team player and pursuing his personal agenda to promote himself keeping behind the companies long term goals, objectives and relationship with their clients. While Rick thought that Les has spoiled his efforts due to his rivalry and inherent autocratic behaviour. He was very near to strike a good deal for the company but Les spoiled the whole effort. So it is the problem of two personality types one who willing to perform on any situation not taking the overall view about the deal seriously and trying to implement his own agenda while the other one having more experience in the field like to build long term relationship with client and before considering any contract wants to involve whole team and to discuss all the issues thoroughly. Analysis: Going through the whole case study it has been quite evident that top sales management team is not functioning as a team. There is no coordination between different levels. Though all have the long time experience of working together except Rick and even then they cannot be able to manage Rick. A good team manager involves the whole team in decision making where as in the case decisions has been made individually. Sales management team has not created by clearly defined goals for each individual therefore the role of one individual overlaps and create problems. Here Rick trying to interfere in the periphery of Les without his willingness and consent, which created problem for the team. Over ambition of any member should be tamed with proper role assignment and taking decisions with the consent of team members. At least everyone of the team must know about the developments on each front. In the case Rick only pretended to appraise the development to Les who was the overall boss of the alternative channel in which domain Rick is working. Ultimately this condition has to create problems in making of a deal. Communication plays an important role in forming and performing any type of team. Simply direct communication with the team members plays the trick. In the case communication between team members are not proper and views has not been heard properly and therefore the team suffered. Assertive and positive behaviour, which is essential for any sales manager, has not been adhered to. Similarly product and market awareness is initially not proper and the proposal presentation to Les by Rick for the first time was not properly researched. Secondly when he prepared proper plan Les responded positively. Then again Les has not been informed about the development in the deal properly. This is the root cause of conflict. Les has never been taken in to confidence for the deal for which he is authorized. Solution: Now the damaged has been done and the conflict between the top sales management team has been surfaced in front of the potential client. Though there are some solution to the problem such as Rick must appraised the position to Dave brown and subsequently he will be assigned the job to go ahead with the client but this may annoy Les. The second option may be that Rick will be confined to his job of national sales manager and Les will be assigned this job to deal with new client but this option may demotivate Rick who has done the job of research and negotiation with the client so far. So the best option for the Dave brown vice president sales is to take the initiative and to call a meeting of all sales management team to analyze the causes of the situation and hear the views of all members to sort out the problems. Define clear role for each one and assigned proper work. The work done by Rick has to share by all and views should be invited and everybody views should be analyzed with companies objective and philosophy. Rick has done a good research, sorted and negotiating companies such as footlockers, which is the largest in size and now focusing accessories whereas Forzain have large stores and higher product assortment. Now again deciding on all the issues company must approach client by Les and Rick collectively with uniform view to strike the deal. It is the best available option for the company to avail. Reference: http://www.hrteam.co.uk accessed on 17-10-2006. Read More